Democracy As Public Deliberation

One of the most remarkable developments in the last twenty years has been the revival of the idea of deliberative democracy. Set against aggregative models of democracy derived from economics, such as the theory of rational choice, the idea of deliberative democracy, or decision-making based on public deliberations among free and equal citizens, represents a highly significant development in democratic theory. Exploring this development, this book provides a fresh and original perspective on a theme at the center of current debates in democratic theory and practice. The essays collected in this volume offer a series of powerful arguments in support of the view that fair and equal treatment of groups is best defended on the basis of a theory of public deliberation. Such a theory has both a normative and institutional dimension. It provides a framework for the normative justification of state policies toward socially or culturally disadvantaged groups, and suggests several institutional mechanisms, such as deliberative forums and citizen's juries, where the voices of disadvantaged groups can be articulated under fair conditions and become effective in shaping' public policy. Democracy as Public Deliberation reminds us that the issue of democracy is not simply one of top-down management and control, but bottom-up considerations that are often located in ethnic, religious and linguistic groups. The great virtue of this volume is to identify statist systems that claim to be democratic, but only in terms of the dominant culture. Democracy as Public Deliberation indicates that democracy often comes in small packages--and in that very fact, it tests the actual ambitions and standards of the macro-state. This is an especially powerful volume for those interested in the strengths and weaknesses of third world structures.

An understanding of the ways in which public deliberation can be extended to meet the needs of modern societies even in the face of increasing pluralism, inequality, an social complexity.

The contributions in this anthology address tensions that arise between reason and politics in a democracy inspired by the ideal of achieving reasoned agreement among free and equal citizens.

The theory of deliberative democracy promotes the creation of systems of governance in which citizens actively exchange ideas, engage in debate, and create laws that are responsive to their interests and aspirations. While deliberative processes are being adopted in an increasing number of cases, decision-making power remains mostly in the hands of traditional elites. In Democratic Illusion, Genevieve Fuji Johnson examines four representative examples: participatory budgeting in the Toronto Community Housing Corporation, Deliberative Polling by Nova Scotia Power Incorporated, a national consultation process by the Canadian Nuclear Waste Management Organization, and public consultations embedded in the development of official languages policies in Nunavut. In each case, measures that appeared to empower the public failed to challenge the status quo approach to either formulating or implementing policy. Illuminating a critical gap between deliberative democratic theory and its applications, this timely and important study shows what needs to be done to ensure deliberative processes offer more than the illusion of democracy.

Citizenship has long been a central topic among educators, philosophers, and political theorists. Using the phrase “rhetorical citizenship” as a unifying perspective, Rhetorical Citizenship and Public Deliberation aims to develop an understanding of citizenship as a discursive phenomenon, arguing that discourse is not prefatory to real action but in many ways constitutive of civic engagement. To accomplish this, the book brings together, in a cross-disciplinary effort, contributions by scholars in fields that rarely intersect. For the most part, discussions of citizenship have focused on aspects that are central to the “liberal” tradition of social thought—that is, questions of the freedoms and rights of citizens and groups. This collection gives voice to a “republican” conception of citizenship. Seeing participation and debate as central to being a citizen, this tradition looks back to the Greek city-states and republican Rome. Citizenship, in this sense of the word, is rhetorical citizenship. Rhetoric is thus at the core of being a citizen. Aside from the editors, the contributors are John Adams, Paula Cossart, Jonas Gabrielsen, Jette Barnholdt Hansen, Kasper Møller Hansen, Sine Nørholm Just, Ildikó Kaposi, William Keith, Bart van Klink, Marie Lund Klujeff, Manfred Kraus, Oliver W. Lembcke, Berit von der Lippe, James McDonald, Niels Møller Nielsen, Tatiana Tatarchevskiy, Italo Testa, Georgia Warnke, Kristian Wedberg, and Stephen West.

This volume assesses the strengths and weaknesses of deliberative democracy.

This title describes a new method of consulting the public that has been tried successfully around the world. It combines the theory of democracy with actual practice.

Deliberative democracy is an embattled political project. It is accused of political naiveté for it only talks about power without taking power. Others, meanwhile, take issue with deliberative democracy’s dominance in the field of democratic theory and practice. An industry of consultants, facilitators, and experts of deliberative forums has grown over the past decades, suggesting that the field has benefited from a broken political system. This book is inspired by these accusations. It argues that deliberative democracy’s tense relationship with power is not a pathology but constitutive of deliberative practice. Deliberative democracy gains relevance when it navigates complex relations of power in modern societies, learns from its mistakes, remains epistemically humble but not politically meek. These arguments are situated in three facets of deliberative democracy—norms, forums, and systems—and concludes by applying these ideas to three of the most pressing issues in contemporary times—post-truth politics, populism, and illiberalism.